It wasn’t a shofar blast. There was no man with
a white beard riding on a donkey. It was just the guy driving in front of me in
some beaten up French make car with his T-Shirt with some English words
scrawled on it stopping in middle of the road and getting out of his car as the
siren sounded. I have heard sirens here before. They were going off regularly
in the war this summer, as I toured around the South and in Jerusalem. They
went off in the previous Gaza War as well that we were here for. Before we
moved here I remember hearing and watching those blasts, as many of my family
now does-my family being any Jew that cares about is brothers and sisters that
reside here in the Holy Land- from the comfortable distance of the States. We
heard and watched those blasts and saw the missiles fall with Tehillim, words
of prayer, on our lips, that Hashem should protect His children, His land. His
country. The sirens warned us of impending danger, and eventually they also
became the sound of the subsequent miracles and salvation that followed, when
the reports of no casualties soon came to follow. But this was a different
siren. It is Yom Hashoah, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day. The bullets and
missiles have fallen. The millions have been massacred…gassed…decimated. There
were certainly miracles. The Jewish “People” survived, lived on, and rebuilt.
But the siren blasts each year and we remember. We stop our cars and stand in
silence and we reflect. My reflection is that it is still not a shofar blast.
It’s not yet over.

We had a discussion in Shul this morning after
the siren about the importance of “Holocaust Education”. Quite a few of my
co-religionists suggested that every child learns and hears about it from home.
The plethora of religious books, novels and stories that religious kids read
are about stories of survival, heroism, and Jewish martyrdom in the sanctification
of Hashem’s name during that period of time. They are not reading Harry Potter
or watching pet tricks on YouTube or fantasy TV shows. They don’t need a “Holocaust
curriculum”. It is already an essential part of their extra-curricular past
time. For many it is the bread and butter that they are raised on. The truth is,
one of colleagues said, every Jewish child that has had a religious Pesach
Seder understands the notion of “B’Chol Dor VaDor Omdim Aleinu L’Chaloteinu”-That
in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us. Every child in
Israel, even non-religious understands that we live in a world where there are
nations that seek to destroy us. There has not been a decade in this country
that has not been threatened with annihilation. 1948, The Sinai Campaign, Six
Day War, War of Attrition, Yom Kippur, 1st Lebanon War, First
Intifada, Gulf War, 2nd Intifada, 2nd Lebanon War, and
in the past decade alone three wars in
Gaza after we expelled our own brothers and sisters from our own land. There
isn’t a 10 year old and perhaps even a seven year old that hasn’t sat in a
bunker or ran from a siren. We cannot forget, because it hasn’t ended. We’re
still fighting for our lives.

Yet, I don’t believe that Holocaust Remembrance
Day is merely about not forgetting those that perished or that there are those
that still will seek to destroy us. Nor do I feel that it is about
strengthening our resolve of “Never Again” or patting ourselves on the shoulder
that we have a State of Israel now to protect us and to remind that the world
that we earned with the blood of our ancestors. Quite the contrary, actually. I
believe that it is the second part of that phrase that we recite by our Pesach
Seder, that we need to reflect upon. That we need to remind ourselves and then
the world of. “V’HaKadosh Baruch Matzileinu MiYadam”- And the Holy One
blessed be He-Hashem, saves us from their hands” Or as the song profoundly adds
in “Rak Hakadosh Baruch Hu”-Only Hashem saves us. Not the United
Nations, not the United States, Not the US Congress or our Christian friends-God
Bless them. Not even the Israeli army, our drones, our brave young soliders and
certainly not our politicians. Dare I even say, not even the Kollel Rabbis and
the young children studying Torah. or even our holy women’s prayers all of
which our sages tell us are our strength and power. At the end of the day it is
only Hashem that saves us. His mercy and His love for His children, no matter
how far they have fallen. And ultimately it is His desire for His revelation to
the whole world that will only come through us that will ultimately come
through in the end. It is our faith and acknowledgement of principle, that I
think about when I close my eyes during the siren. That I will not forget.

This week we in Israel read a different Torah
reading than that of those in the States. We are a step ahead of you here.
While they are reading about the dedication of the original Tabernacle and the
tragedy that occurred with the death of the children of Aharon upon its
dedication in Parshat Shmini. We will be reading about the birth of
children boys and girls and the preparation of the purification process to
raise that new generation in the Temple to be rebuilt. As they will read about
the laws of the Kosher animals and the impurity associated that comes with the
internalizing of the animals that are impure. We in Israel will be reading
about the external blemishes of Tzora’as that come as a result of the
sins of Lashon Hara, fighting, stinginess and arrogance. External blemishes
that our sages teach only come here in the land of Israel and only on a people whose
internal is already pure. Hashem commands, explains the Rebbe of Lubavitch,
that one who is afflicted with this malady to go off into isolation. This is to
recognize that our camp is pure. Even more than that, that he himself is
internally pure. The blemishes are merely external shackles that he still has
to remove. He must remove his pride, his fighting his divisiveness from his
fellow man and his separation from his Creator so he can rejoin his camp. Hashem’s
camp. Where the external matches the purity of the internal. A world without
blemish. A world where Hakadosh Baruch Hu and only Hakadosh Baruch Hu
saves us from our enemy’s hands.

There are no coincidences in the weekly Torah
reading. We are meant to read each Torah portion as if it is our daily
commentary of our lives to today. It’s like Hashem’s weekly Talk Radio Show
about the daily and weekly news to us. We just have to scratch the surface a
bit and find the meaning He is meaning to convey to us in His weekly show. It’s
not just global issues either. It is the personal message to each and every Jew
in their own personal lives; the challenges we face, the tragedies that beset
us and the victories that we achieve. This week there are two different
readings and thus two different messages for what is so sadly and tragically
two separated parts of our nation. The message of Shmini is that of the
remembering the joy and tragedy of the coronation Mishkan of old and the focus
and emphasis upon the non-internalization of impurity, the breaking and
koshering of vessels that have come in contact with the impure. In the words of
the Torah “To separate between Holy and profane and between pure and impure”.Parshat Shmini is the midway point of the Torah both in letters and
words. It concludes I am Hashem who raises you (present tense) up from the land
of Egypt to be a God for you. And you shall be holy for I am Holy. It is the
Parsha that is the turning point. When we have left the past.

Tazria and Metzora, though are about the future. The new
generation. The ones not born in tragedy but in purity, in the land of our
Fathers that we have waited so long to come home to. To this new generation
Hashem directs us to focus on preserving that purity. In the land of Israel we
will never be allowed to forget the consequences when we begin to contaminate
our innate purity or the purity of the land with our seeds of dissent and with
the afflictions of our lapses in faith that Hashem and only Hashem is running
everything. Our fate is only in His hand. The redemption will come when we can
finally remove those last external vestiges that 2000 years of Exile amongst
the nations have left upon our souls.

As I close my eyes for the siren, I think about
my ancestors as they marched to the gas chambers. I recall the stories and
testimonies of survivors about how they sang Ani Maamin-I believe with
total faith in the coming of Mashiach. How millions of them died with the words
Shema Yisrael- Hashem is our God Hashem is One on their lips. They
understood more clearly than any of us today that there is no one else that
will bring that redemption. They understood we were put here on this earth for
only one purpose to sanctify Hashem’s name and to bring His glory to this
world. In their deaths they did so. It is now up to us to herald in the Final
Days, Hashem’s “Final Solution” that we will soon here that Shofar sing its
call.

While in the states I picked up a great book with
yiidsh quotes and wisdom and I have always wanted to teach my kids Yiddish so
here we go each week another great proverb in yiddish maybe you guys will learn
it too!!

“First they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out--because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the
trade unionists, and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.",”-Martin Niemöller

““Many people abandoned
Judaism because of the Holocaust. I did just the opposite,” he said. “We have
no alternative but to attach ourselves to Torah and mitzvot. Why? Because we
want to defeat the Nazis. The Nazis didn’t only attack the Jews physically, but
also spiritually. What’s the proof? The very first thing they did before the
war even started was Kristallnacht. They destroyed over 1000 shuls in a single
night. Ten months before the war began, they were already fighting against
synagogues and sifrei kodesh, our holy books. This shows what their
real intention was. They attacked our soul before our body. If we abandon the
Torah, we are helping them win the battle. We must be victorious by clinging to
the Torah. Our eternity, our continuity depends on it.”–Rabbi
Yisrael Meir Lau

RABBI
SCHWARTZ'S TOUR GUIDE EXAM QUESTION OF THE WEEK

(answer below at end of Email)

The Dead
Sea Works were founded by:

A.Pinhas
Sapir

B.Pinhas
Rotenberg

C.Simha
Blass

D.Moshe
Novomeiski

.RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL MIDRASH OF THE WEEK

Parshat Tazria begins
with the mitzvah of a boy being born and circumcising him after 8 days. The
Midrash explains why Hashem decreed that one must wait 8 days before circumcising
the child with a parable. On the occasion of the visit of the kings friend to
his palace the King arranged a big banquet in his honor. However on the way to
the banquet the King asked his friend if he had yet the opportunity to see the queen.
When the friend replied that he hadn’t the King exclaimed “How can you come
to the Palace without having first met the King. For she is more beautiful than
words and the entire palace is in her merit.”

Similarly Hashem
rules that unless a child has first met the Shabbos Queen and absorbed its
holiness and beauty than he cannot yet undergo his circumcision.

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S COOL THINGS TO DO IN ISRAEL OF THE WEEK

Being moved by a siren – As a kid growing up in
Detroit they would have sirens blare every month to prepare for tornados. They
were fun. My father would open his mouth and pretend that the sound was coming
from there. (remember that Dad?). In Israel though Sirens have more meaning. On
Yom Hashoa and on Yom HaZikaron Israel’s memorial days for the holocaust and it’s
fallen soldiers the siren is a call for a moment of silence and reflection.
People stop their cars, their shopping, their activities and all schools pause
in middle of their learning to reflect upon our past and our martyrs. In times
of war as well when sirens go off even those that are not in the “war zone”
pause and offer their prayers for one another. The siren is our modern day
Shofar that unites our people. May we soon hear the real one of Mashiach

******************

RABBI SCHWARTZ'S HITLER JOKES OF THE WEEK

Stalin
dies and goes to hell. Satan meets him at the gate. "Welcome to
hell!" he says, "let me show your punishment". He takes Stalin
over to a pile of boulders at the bottom of a hill and says "your job is
to push these up to the top of the hill for all eternity... now get started"He pushes the first rock up to the top and spots
Hitler sitting at a desk writing. A little while later Satan comes back.
"How's it going?" he asks "Not too well actually" replies
Stalin, "how come I have to push endless rocks up a hill and all Hitler
has to do is write?""Don't worry about that" laughs Satan.
"He's translating The Communist Manifesto into Hebrew

****

A
man looks down the bar and sees a man that looks like Adolph Hitler he walks up
to him and says are you Hitler? The man stands up and says real loud “Yes I am Adolph
Hitler I killed 6 million Jews and 3 clowns. The man says why did you kill 3
clowns? Hitler says “See what I mean, no one cares about the Jews”.
*************

Aaron
meets Moshe in Berlin and asks him what he has done the whole day long.
"I was at the funeral of Hitler!" he replies.
"And how was it, what happened there"
"Oh.it was surprising" says Moshe "First they let the coffin
down in the hole, but then pulled it out, then let it down again, pulled it out
again and so on. About ten or twelve times!"
"But why?" askes Aaron astonished.
"Oh, thats no wonder, with this enormous applause he had!!!"
**************************

Answer is D: All of the choices for
this question have something in common. Can any of you guess what they are?
Hey! How about that? You figured it out? Yes, all of them have to with Israel.
Good. J. Now what about Israel?
O.K. I’ll tell you. Water. Each of the above were all involved with something
to do with water. Pinchas Sapir was in charge of the Movil Artzi Israel’s
national water system. The Kinneret pumping station which pumps out water
around the whole country is named after him. Ruttenberg developed Israel’s
first Electric power plant in Gesher that utilized the Yarmouk and Jordan
rivers to power it. Simcha Blass developed water systems in the Negev including
drip irrigation. And the correct answer Novometzkey started the development of
the Dead Sea works and extraction of minerals from it.

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About Me

Hi, thanks for popping in. I am a recent Oleh. My wife Aliza and children Shani, Yonah, Rivkah, Elka and Tully recently moved to Karmiel Israel from Seattle Washington where we used to have a little Shul in our home the West Seattle TLC (Torah Learning Center). I have been involved in Jewish educational outreach for over 15 years. Originally a Detroiter, we have been lucky enough to live in Midwood New York, Des Moines Iowa, Norfolk Virginia and Seattle. I'm just a down to earth guy who would rather talk in the front of the shul than the back so i became a Rabbi where that becomes your job. I love Jews,Stories, Israel, and chulent. Recently we opened up the Young Israel of Karmiel and look forward to greeting the many North American and Anglo Olim who will join us here in the beautiful Galil.
Please comment away I thrive on your input. Thanks!

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